BILLINGS — The ballot rejection rate in Yellowstone County currently sits at about 3% or 752 ballots as 2 p.m. on Election Day.
While results are continuing to trickle in, Yellowstone County Election Administrator Dayna Causby confirmed with MTN that about 41% or 29,000 of all ballots have been submitted.
Causby said that roughly 80% of the rejected ballots, about 600 total, are due to voters forgetting to put their birth year on the outside of the envelope, which is a new state law in effect for the first time this year.
"It started Oct. 1, and our office has been working pretty diligently to try to get in touch with every single voter on that list and speak with them in regards to resolving whatever issue it was with that ballot," Causby said Tuesday morning.
Last week, the rejection rate was higher with nearly 5%, or 880 ballots, of the total 17,743 rejected as of Oct. 28. The decrease in the rejection rate is reflecting the number of voters who have corrected their ballots for counting.
Causby said anyone with a rejected ballot will have until 5 p.m. on Wednesday to fix those issues and make sure their vote is counted. County election workers will continue counting those fixed ballots through the day and release a final preliminary county Wednesday evening.
"We strongly encourage them to come down to the office to resolve any ballot issue that they have," Causby said. "If we receive a ballot (Tuesday) that doesn't have its birth year or the signatures not there, whatever the reason is that we can't receive the ballot right, we make a call to that voter and tell them that they have until tomorrow at 5 p.m. to resolve any issues with their ballots."
Causby said that in a typical municipal election in Yellowstone County, around 50% of the total ballots are cast, meaning there's likely more votes coming in, with the first wave of results tentatively planned for 8 p.m.
"We'll have one upload of election results around 8 p.m. tonight and then the later one will probably be around 10, 10:30 or so," Causby said. "It really depends on that last push. It really depends on the number of ballots we receive after 8 p.m."
